Artificial intelligence may be making the world smarter, safer, more functional and accessible. But can it make the world more beautiful? A number of researchers hope to do so by developing AI systems that can paint, write, and colorize photographs.

For years, Google’s neural networks have allowed the search engine to generate remarkably accurate results to queries. Similar neural networks allow Google, Twitter, and Facebook to identify the content in images – a pattern recognition task that may be easy for humans, but proves rather difficult for AI.

Last year, the tech giant let these neural nets loose on the trove of images across the web. But instead of identifying images, the neural nets were tasked with generating images. The results are bizarre works of art.

Google’s DeepDream reinterprets a standard image into an “inceptionist” work of art.

Google calls its art generator DeepDream and refers to its artwork as pieces of “Inceptionism”, in a nod to the blockbuster hit Inception. The images are probably an acquired taste, falling somewhere between surrealism and impressionism. Nonetheless, an auction in February 2016 saw some of these pieces rake in tens-of-thousands of dollars for charity, according to Wired.

Facebook uses two algorithms; one creates images from random vectors, and another attempts to identify objects within the images. The realistic images pass the round, while the unrealistic ones are scrapped by researchers. In this way, Facebook’s neural nets can refine the realism of their generated images. With enough rounds of creation and analysis, the images will more often depict realistic objects.

In the near term, AI will likely prove to be most beneficial through practical applications in finance, healthcare, and cybersecurity. But these efforts by Google, Facebook, and university researchers hint at a whole new AI frontier that has yet to be tapped.

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Despite what the media tends to depict, artificial intelligence is being put to better use than winning video games and board games. In fact, two of the world’s leading tech giants have begun using AI to help the blind perceive the world in helpful new ways.

Picture this: Mad Men returns for a final season set in the near future. The advertising agency Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce is still a powerhouse though its namesakes have since retired. Actually, the entire human staff has been reduced to just a few account men, managers, and technicians. Where are the creatives? They're in the computers.

A few weeks ago, Chinese software company Baidu released key parts of a key artificial intelligence/ speech recognition algorithm into the realm of open source, following in the footsteps of Facebook and Google last year.

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